Colleges & Campus News

Career Services to Offer 3 New Programs for Students

Three new programs to help students prepare for employment after college will be introduced by UCF Career Services when the fall semester begins.

To provide additional career footing, the programs are:

Career Readiness Week

Some of Career Services’ existing activities will be merged Sept. 19-23 to help students prepare for the following week’s Career Expo, at which prospective employers meet with students and alumni to discuss internship, employment and career opportunities.

“It will be a full week of opportunities for students to get a resume critique or practice their elevator pitch,” said Melanie Brown, coordinator of marketing information and data in Career Services.

The university offers Career Expos in the fall and spring semesters, when more than 200 employers and 2,000 students usually attend to find a perfect match with each other.

To prepare for the fall expo, the Career Readiness Week will serve as an employment boot camp, also offering practice interview sessions, workshops, networking strategies and the opportunity to have a photographer shoot a professional head shot.

Career Readiness Week will be held in the Career Services office along Memory Mall. The following week’s Career Expo will be held in the CFE Arena.

“Ready, Set, Work”

In response to Gov. Rick Scott’s “Ready, Set, Work” challenge, a series of workshops will be provided for psychology majors to learn more about career opportunities.

Scott’s challenge to every state university is to get all graduates in their two most popular majors to have full-time jobs within a year after graduation, unless they go to graduate school.

Psychology is the top major at UCF and at least five other universities in Florida.

Career Services is working with the Department of Psychology to offer Career PREP (Psychology Readiness Enhancement Program). The series will include career-readiness programs, job-search strategies, workshops, employer panels for practice interviews, and information sessions specifically for psychology students.

The program that is UCF’s second most popular major is nursing.

Women in STEM

To boost the career success of women students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, Career Services will host an event to introduce them to the different opportunities available.

“Women in STEM: Aim Higher” will include a mini-conference, breakout sessions and guest speakers. There also will be an opportunity for women to make connections with engineering, computer science and other companies and organizations such as NASA, Deloitte, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and Veritas, which are partnering with UCF on the event.

The event will be 5-9 p.m. Oct. 20 in the Student Union’s Pegasus Ballroom.